this week on had "the journal" obama care web woes continue and the fingerpointing begins on capitol hill with even some democrats expressing concern. could we see a delay in law after all? new jersey governor chris christie on track for a big re-election win but could the gay marriage controversy derail his 2016 presidential ambitions? a growing risk with one of america's staunchest allies and what it means for americans standing in the middle east. welcome to "the journal editorial report" i'm paul gigot.

the fingerpointing began on capitol hill this week as healthcare.gov lead contractors testified before congress about the problems plaguing the website with even democrats voicing their frustration. >> there are thousands of websites that handle concurrent vali volumes far larger than what healthcare.gov were dealt with. amazon and ebay don't crash the week before christmas and pro flowers doesn't crash on valentine's day. >> other democrats joined the call for an extension on the deadline to enroll in the health care exchanges. could we see a delay in the individual mandate after all? let's ask "wall street journal" columnist dan hanniger and kim strausal and editorial board member joe riggo. so, joe, a new story came to the floor this week in addition to the floor but this dropped

coverage, policy holders all over the country are getting notices saying that they're losing their covers. that wasn't supposed to happen. >> you may remember president obama's frequent if you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan. >> why aren't they being able to keep their health plan? >> the current coverage right now does not comply with all sorts of affordable care act mandates and regulations. you know, the essential health benefits rule, for example. >> which if the minimum required for coverage. >> these are sort of ten areas of coverage that all health plans must cover. >> people like them presumably or they wouldn't have them. they wouldn't buy them now. >> a health plan like kaiser permanen permanen permanentye dropped coverage and in the state one of the most popular health plans held up as a model of health reform and california blue. 80% of their policy. >> there are about 19 million people as i understand it in

this individual and small business market that is who aren't part of larger corporations who buy on the individual market. how many of those people could lose their current coverage. >> according to a review in the study "health affairs" last year about half of them will lose their coverage and probably more. the health care bill included a grandfather clause that was supposed to give these people a safe harbor when health and human services department wrote it. it was very narrow and very hard to qualify. >> they wrote it very restrictively and that's what's tossing all these people out. this is deliberate political choice. >> exactly. the entire apparatus of this bill is about political control. when they say your health plan is inadequate, you need to get something better, something that we've approved. that's why you're seeing these cancellations right now. >> amazing. dan, let's talk about the exchanges. you followed the hearings this week. what did we learn about the development of the website to sign on?

>> well, we developed that they're obviously not red a efor primetime and going to bring in to try to fix it. >> so they say. what were they using the b-team, c-team, the d-team, what? >> they did not give these people, this is one of the complicated software pieces of and it was huge and complex and going to be hard. one aspect to the failure that we need to focus on a little bit. and its f this is a failure and what is going to kick in is actuarial science. the insurers are telling them, we need to have this up and running by about november 1st so that the insurance pool will include healthy people, young, healthy people who are uninsured and not just the sickest people. because if they don't get that right, this exchange, these exchanges are going to be holy unbalanced which will blow up the cost of this law. that, i think, is the problem that is maybe going to get fixed

if the young, healthy people pull back from obama care. >> joe, is this just a technical or management problem that they didn't hire the right computer science. they could have gone to ebay or something like that, obviously, that's one element. or something larger here? >> you mentioned deliberate political choices earlier. that really does factor into the failure of the exchanges so far. so, for example, one thing we learned at this hearing was that hhs was acting as the general manager of the 55 contractors who were spending actually about $1 billion we now know on building this website. and normally government agency would outsource that to someone with the expertise and talent to sort of do the quarterbafor thi kind of project. they didn't do that. that would mean somebody else would decide what is supposed to be valuable or appropriate to the consumer. >> they didn't want to give up that political control. speaking of politics, kim,

political fallout on this is growing. so, what, you wrote a column this week about how democrats are beginning to get nervous. how widespread is that concern? >> widespread and growing. you know, the white house is the greatest protection here has maintained a solid wall united with it in the senate among its democrats against doing any big change to this law. you saw this in the shutdown. you mentioned new hampshire senator jean shaheen. within a day she had six more senate democrats who were behind her on that or five, the six altogether. they are very much worried about how they're getting hit with this back home and the importance here, paul, is once they stepped out and admitted there needs to be some sort of consequenceal change to this, the pressure is going to grow on them to do something even more

significant. >> just delay the enrollment period, that, at this stage, would seem to be almost essential. and that gives them a little political cover. are they going to go as far as democrats, as far as republicans want them to do which is delay the individual mandate for a full year, which would seem to be a growing possibility. if they don't do that, aren't democrats just trying to get a little political cover and not really addressing the big problem? >> well, that's what they're trying to do at the moment, no question. but, again, the importance of having agreed that there is a problem now, they have opened themselves up to the question of, if there is a problem, what are you going to do to actually fix it? given that there are continued hearings in the coming weeks and more of the revelations of what a big mess this is, it's going to be hard for these guys to dodge at some point doing something more. >> all right, kim, thank you. when we come back, republican governor chris christie is well on his way to a big re-election win in the bluest of blue states. will his new jersey record and

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with just over a week until election day, polls show chris christie poised for a big re-election win. and in the heavily democratic garden state, his decision this week to drop a legal challenge to same-sex marriage may well add it his margin of victory. but what it does for his 2016 presidential prospects is less clear. in a statement monday, tony perkins of the family research council criticized christie's decision saying "apparently the governor is giving up all hopes of identifying as a conservative in any future political aspirations." we're back with dan, "wall street journal" and james freeman and new jersey resident and voter. so, let's talk about, he's going to win. and maybe big.

but what's his record? what has he accomplished? >> basically what he's done is stop the bleeding in a high-tax, slow-growth state. he held the line on property tax increases or restrained them a bit, held the line, no more income tax increases and made some progress on pension reform. he said he's cut over $100 billion in costs over the next three decades and they have big, unfunded liability. >> his campaign theme is, i stopped the bleeding? >> he is going to win big, i know that. the big question is whether he has coattails and flip one of those houses of the legislature to get the state going. >> where has he fallen down. the state income tax is very high and proposed a cut didn't succeed and the state business environment still not very good. >> i think that's the problem. he needs to go a lot further on reform. new jersey has an unemployment rate of 8.5% and all the neighbors are in the 7s. for the sake of me and my fellow

citizens and also for his presidential aspirations. he has to get reform in this next four years here and try to get a vibrant economy growing. it is not going to compare well to texas, for example. >> dorothy, you're a student of the governor. what does he make of his tenure and his re-election campaign? >> well, his re-election campaign, we know, he's going to win big. but, you know, he's the head of a victimized state this cata catastrophe hit and this is going to elevate his standing in many ways. i look at him now on the stump and i see the future of a political run. he has not only not lost any of thiz mad his magic powers, he has gained. he has these moments of reaganence brilliance. to say something nice about the governor and said something

about -- >> state senator, by the way. >> gets to chris christie who says this woman is the most magnificent public servant, a wonderful mother. she could not be a better servant. he does it, this is the point, in this incredibly heartwarming, credible way. and not political. this no one is going to be bored by. >> the gay marriage controversy would not stand in his way in 2016? >> absolutely not. his presence is an overwhelmingly magnetic one. think about the last election. think about the absence. >> you mean the 2012 preside presidential election, i thought that is what you were hinting at. >> think about mitt romney who could not connect. a person who can't fail to connect. >> what about that embrace last year of the president right before the election, which really didn't please a lot of republicans. he embraced president obama. of course, christie now says i

got a lot of money out of it. what am i going to do? i'm the governor of a stricken state is it going to hurt christie in 2016 primaries. >> it won't hurt him, but the general, it is known that late-breaking voters went to obama because of that photo-op that he did. it hurt romney. now, chris christie is going to argue that he is the candidate who can incorporate the center that these independent voters and so forth. we have just -- >> powerful argument. >> powerful argument. the government shutdown has displayed that there are highly animated aggressive conservative voters out there and that is a faction in the party that is going to have to be dealt with in the primaries. his argument is, i can win. and one of the things i can win does for you is it gets campaign donations from the big money people who really want to win. at this point he's feeling a march on his competitors.

>> is i can win a winning theme? >> like i said, i think he's going to have a problem with his record and talk about the economy not growing the way he would like. now, he says the private sector is growing now -- >> he's had to work with the democratic legislature. >> he has not gotten the kind of pension and state governance reforms that, for example, scott walker has gotten in wisconsin. as we mentioned, a lot of competitors who come from faster growing, more competitive space. i think it is going to be some distance since sandy when he's talking to republican primary voters. he's going to need to have more to show. >> i gather you think that's a problem. >> we did have a visitor, who should go nameless but a politically estute one who said i don't know if you can sell christie to middle america. whose notion to political connection is shut up. >> well, that, he would have to

change that appeal. there's no question about that. all right, thank you. we'al be following this. a long-time ally in the middle east pulling no punches in the criticism of the obama administration. what a rift with saudi arabia means for america's influence in the region, next. farmer: hello, i'm an idaho potato farmer. and our giant idaho potato truck is still missing. so my dog and i we're going to go find it. it's out there somewhere spreading the good word about idaho potatoes and raising money for meals on wheels. but we'd really like our truck back, so if you see it, let us know, would you? thanks. what?

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one of our staunchest allies in the middle east, saudi arabia has apparently had enough of the obama administration shifting policies there threatening in recent weeks to scale back partner's old over to stand up to bashar assad and willingness to engage. brett stevens joins us with

more. so, brett, this is a seven-year partnership. how serious is this breakup and whaut's behind it? >> it's now public. people have been hearing privately for a long time really since the beginning of the obama administration the unhappiness towards the obama administration willingness and then dissidence in dealing with iran's client assad. now, it's completely out in the open. the foreign minister did come to give a speech at the u.n., and turned down a seat at the u.n. security council and the prince, very influential figure who was ambassador here had a talking with european diplomat to let the americans know how unhappy they are. to be as public as they are. >> show you how public. i want to read something here from a major figure. the current charade of international control over

bashar's chemical arsenal would be funny if it were not so blatantly p blata blatant perfiddious and, you really don't hear of the united states -- >> how often do you hear saudi aristocrat have the standing -- >> you think that's a proper critique. >> absolutely people are being critiqued. >> i think that some viewers might ask, look, the saudis have, not the government, but the saudi royals, some of the family have financed jihadists around the world, including some of those who ended up attacking us on 9/11. is it really so bad for u.s. interests if suddenly a rupture in the relationship. maybe too close to them all along. >> without fully quoting lyndon johnson, we'd rather have these guys in the tent rather than outside of them. that's true with a lot of our

allies around the world. and, look, if washington had said, look, we're going to downgrade relations with saudi arabia until they start cutting ties with some of their allies around the world. >> islamists fundamental. >> islamist extremists, then that is understandable. this is over strategic interest. countries can share strategic interest even if they don't share valuevalues. saudis understand what a threat it is to iran and their own region what the bleeding in syria is doing to them, even to israel. and they see an america that is just not willing to honor its security guarantee. >> fascinating, dan, israel and saudi arabia seem to have the same perception of this administration and the same criticism of its weakness in the middle east. >> yeah, paul. the next question is, what other western leading nations in the region are coming to that conclusion, such as turkey or egypt, if it ever gets its act together.

big countries over there and strategically important countries. the approximate issproximate is chemical weapons in syria and the saudis, everything there thought we were going to do that and then he pulls back to do a deal with vladimir putin and ridiculed and then within about ten days, suddenly, president obama is calling up the president of iran to strike a deal. for everyone in the region this is abruptly shifting the balance of power and saudis pulled back and i think the turks may, as well, at this point. >> what are the consequences of this? what does it really mean for u.s. interests? >> what it means is that we're entering into a world the foreign policy freelancers. for many years israel has restrained itself from attacking iran because it believes that it would rather follow the united states and follow its diplomatic lead and even follow its

military lead. now, it's on its own and so are the saudis and every man for himself. >> the saudis could get nuclear weapons themselves. we have to take one more break. when we come back, hits and misses of the week. avo: the volkswagen "sign then drive" sales event is back. which means it's never been easier to get a new passat, awarded j.d. power's most appealing midsize car, two years in a row. and right now you can drive one home for practically just your signature. get zero due at signing, zero down, zero deposit, and zero first month's payment on any new 2014 volkswagen. hurry, this offer ends october 31st. for details, visit vwdealer.com today. >> announcer: introducing the redesigned jitterbug plus, our smartest, easiest cell phone yet. >> when i heard about the jitterbug, i went online and ordered one for my mom. now my mom has a cell phone she actually enjoys using. >> announcer: the jitterbug plus is easy to use, easy to see,

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time now for hits & misses of the week. brad, first to you. >> this is a giant miss to all the governments in europe and latin america expressing full outrage over revelations, thanks to edward snowden and assorted journalists about the wiretapping and the eavesdropping that is done by the nsa. governments around the world have known that other governments spy on them on a very regular basis. this is a shocked shocked moment and we would all like to know a little bit more about what german spies do and brazilian spies do before everyone else piles on the united states. >> okay, bret, dorothy.

>> trying to save us from illegal mentions of god led by the military religious freedom foundation whose leader found out to his horror that the usair force academy oath, which all cadets must take ends with so help me god. violation of the constitution says mr. weinstein. >> james? >> paul so few opportunity to say nice things about soccer, but this is a hit to the french soccer players who are going on strike at the end of november to protest the 75% top income tax rate in france. and this is a message i think around the world, even to the democrats here that if you push rates high enough, eventually everyone joins the tea party. and, remember, if you have your own hit or miss, send it to us and be sure to follow us on

twitter @ jeronfnc. i'm paul gigot, hope to see you right here next week. fox news alert, the doctor jailed after helping the cia track down osama bin laden may soon be free. fox news getting exclusive details that pakistan's premiere is pledging to reconsider the case of this man, dr. afridi. hello, everyone, so glad you can join us. this is big news, the doctor jailed shortly after bin laden was killed by navy s.e.a.l.s in pakistan in may of 2011. he is still there even after his 33-year sentence on trumped up conspiracy charges was overturned.